Bait and switch at SUNY

Our opinion: A university system that increasingly asks students to shoulder its costs is in danger of losing its mantle of public higher education.

For the third straight year, students at the State University of New York face a $300 tuition increase. The state, however, will pay no more toward SUNY’s core budget than it did in the 2012-13 school year.

As a result, SUNY students are paying an ever-increasing share of SUNY’s costs, shifting the burden of public higher education to them and away from taxpayers. And a state government that promised not to diminish its support of SUNY is doing just that.

Sound familiar? It’s essentially the same scenario critics cite with the state lottery, a stream of revenue that was supposed to enhance public education spending but, over the years, replaced state dollars.

In the case of SUNY, however, the bait-and-switch raises a more profound issue: At what point is SUNY in danger of no longer being a truly public higher education system, supported strongly by taxpayers and affordable to all New Yorkers? This trend began after Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the Legislature in 2011 created a so-called rational tuition plan, an idea we agreed with in concept but not in the details. The idea was commendable: The state had a history of holding off unpopular tuition hikes for years, only to sock students with huge periodic increases. Why not do modest annual increases that students and families could predict and plan for?

Mr. Cuomo and the Legislature’s plan called for annual tuition hikes of $300, which worked out to more than 5 percent a year. Since the plan was passed, tuition has risen 17 percent. Had tuition kept up with inflation, it would be about $5,500. Instead, New York residents attending SUNY this fall will pay $6,170.

SUNY points out it still has among the nation’s lowest tuitions and that these increases have helped add faculty, degree programs and financial aid. No argument there. More money no doubt makes a better SUNY. The question is, where should the money for a public university come from: Increasingly costly private tuition or public support?

As part of the plan, the governor and Legislature agreed to a “maintenance of effort” provision, meaning the state commitment would not be reduced. But, apparently, it depends what you mean by commitment. In real dollars, the state’s basic funding of SUNY is slated in the upcoming budget to remain right where it was in 2012, $676.4 million billion. But, as a percentage of SUNY’s core budget, state support will have dropped from 34.4 percent in 2011, the year rational tuition was approved, to 30.5 percent this coming year. Tuition, which accounted for 61.6 percent of the operating budget, will now support more than 67 percent.

Keeping state support for SUNY stagnant has helped Mr. Cuomo and the Legislature boast of how they’ve gotten spending under control and not raised taxes. But SUNY’s rising tuition sure seems like a tax hike by another name.

Where is this headed? How much less of SUNY’s costs does New York intend to cover? And just how much deeper will students and families have to dig to pay for a public education?

9 Responses

I can’t agree less. SUNY is a great bargain and a good value and gradually shifting the costs to the actual users as opposed to making the taxpayers shoulder the burden is the right thing to do. I have two kids in SUNY and have no problems with the increases!

Why should tax payers pay for an out of control SUNY system? NY gives a BILLION dollars away to NY students, and then has to pay for adminstration, salaries, etc of the SUNY administrators that tax payers have no say in. There is no return on the taxpayer investment. SUNY also has to pay for CUNY schools who should have been shut down for fiscal mismanagement. Is everything in this country broken? Get off taxpayers’ backs.

This editorial shows a complete lack of imagination, which is strange since it’s out of touch with reality. In the average state the student and college pay roughly the same amount towards the educational costs at the college. In NYS the state pays about 50% more than the student. NYS also has one of the country’s highest out migrations of recent graduates. Why should the already overburdened NYS taxpayer pay more of the costs of something that’s not benefitting the state but will benefit somebody who over time is going to be making more money than the average NYS taxpayer, and making that money someplace that won’t benefit NY?

If NYS wants to take some of the financial burden off the students there are all sorts of ways to do this that don’t amount to helping provide cheaper college educated citizens to other states. How about providing greater direct subsidies for tuition expenses to students who are working and going to school in NY? How about providing greater tax credits or deductions against NYS taxes for student loan payments and tuition? There are also lots of other ways of helping out NYS college students that will also benefit NY in a real way.

Maybe SUNY would need to spend less if they’d invest in academics rather than athletics and manicured lawns on campus. How come that European universities spend half as much per student and deliver the same if not better results? They just don’t sink all the money into football stadiums.

A better question is how high will SUNY jack up costs and stick them on the parents while pretending that it’s the legislature’s fault? The money isn’t going into the classroom because the adjuncts are everywhere and they’re barely paid. So where is it going?

I love the statement “more money makes a better SUNY”. Well written TU. You are so liberal with tax dollars. That mentality is what got unions all of their money, teachers all of theirs, etc. Why don’t you spend more money and make a better newspaper! (and fix the stupid light board hanging on your building like an old eye sore with some of that free money too)

Kudos for hitting the nail right on the head with this Editorial. The deal that SUNY brokered with Cuomo and legislators for “rational tuition” was a smokescreen meant to hide the real truth: diminished public support for supposedly public education. Affordable public higher education is the greatest economic leveler today; it allows smart, hard-working people to get a quality education at an affordable price, and promotes upward mobility. Instead, the current practice serves only to price higher education beyond the reach of many, or saddle them with a huge student loan debt burden that means home ownership is delayed for years. The Governor and legislature broke their promise to students (assuming they ever intended to keep it). Where are Ken LaValle and Deborah Glick when you need’em???

In a word: YES. This is an excellent, spot-on editorial on the “state” of SUNY. Although, of course, the very issue is that the state (as in NYS) is evermore pulling out of SUNY, shifting the burden of higher education onto working-class students and families rather than maintaining that burden across the public at large via taxation, including upon our state’s many millionaires, billionaires, and large corporations that should ever be held accountable and responsible to the common people: the public. Education is a right, not a privilege. And the whole point of SUNY is to provide access to higher education to those who cannot afford otherwise.
I write as a current doctoral candidate at SUNY Stony Brook, an alumnus of SUNY Albany, and a member of the Stony Brook May Day Coalition (http://maydaystonybrook.org/) where we are organizing to fight for free, public higher education at SUNY and across our schools and communities.

@Gregory Rosenthal, Gino,
There are always pros and cons to any issue, but you two have completely ignored all the good reasons listed in the other comments as to why the editorial is wrong. I’m used to that type of self-serving tunnel vision from wing-nuts but expect more from others, particularly “Doctoral Candidates”. I’d also expect a “Doctoral Candidate” to know that the statement “Education is a right , not a privilege” to be nonsensical on this issue. Hopefully you two can show the rest of us that you aren’t just left-wing versions of wing-nut t-party members.